Digital Media Community Mourns Jenn Marcelais

The city’s digital media community lost one of its most creative and innovative pioneers on Tuesday when Jenn Marcelais lost her battle with cancer.

This week, her Facebook page was filled with heartfelt messages from her friends and clients who expressed their sorrow upon learning of Marcelais’ death at the age of 39. It also included several photos of a woman who brimmed with a love for life and her craft.

Marcelais was the owner of a web development firm called Soul Oyster Web Studios and she designed the web pages for dozens of Portsmouth area restaurants, stores and businesses, as well as nonprofit groups. She was also a devoted historian who used her talents for photography and digital media to illuminate New England's rich past through her A Very Grave Matter project.

“I grew up for the most part in Amesbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts. But I love Portsmouth, NH, my adopted hometown. I'm a huge history nerd (fits well in Portsmouth), art geek and love museums. I also love to travel, especially to different places around the country with my Dad,” Marcelais wrote on her Facebook page.

She graduated from Salem State College in 1994 with a degree in graphic design before moving to Portsmouth and founding her company in 2003. It was soon after that she met her long-time friend and fellow web designer Bonnie Carberry of Portsmouth.

Carberry recalled how she met Marcelais about 12 years ago at the Portsmouth Christmas Parade. The two women learned they were both web designers and their friendship grew from there.

“She definitely was one of the best Internet, social media marketing gurus. She was very good at Twitter, Foursquare, and Tumblr and she would figure out how best to use them for her clients,” Carberry recalled Thursday afternoon.

Carberry recalled how Marcelais recognized early on how social media could play a big role in promoting Portsmouth’s history and the community and she wanted to master it. Each time a new form of social media emerged, Carberry said Marcelais took the time to learn how it worked and how she could apply SEO to help her clients and her projects.

“I think she worked at it because she really enjoyed it.”

As Portsmouth’s digital media scene began to grow after 2000, Carberry said Marcelais immediately earned the respect and admiration of her fellow web designers.

“I followed a lot of the stuff that Jenn did from her SEO talent and social media. She was right on the leading edge of all them,” Carberry said. “She did a lot of stuff through the Internet.”

Erik Crago, another friend of Marcelais, said he, too, was very impressed at the job she did as the head of Soul Oyster Web Studios.

"She loved her work as sole proprietor of Soul Oyster Web Design, and she was great at what she did. That she had many long-time customers was a testament to her personality and the quality of her work," wrote Crago in an e-mail.

Crago also wrote that Marcelais was a delightful person who had a wonderful sense of humor.

"Whether I was talking to her or reading her many status updates, she always made me laugh. I still can't believe she's gone. She was so vibrant, so genuine, so thoughtful, it doesn't seem right that such a person could be gone, and at such a young age. Portsmouth won't be the same without Jenn," Crago wrote.

Carberry said Marcelais was also very passionate about her A Very Grave Matter project, where she did so much research about New England gravestones. “It was unbelievable.”

Carberry said she and her brother want to keep the A Very Grave Matter project going for Marcelais. Marcelais was not married and didn’t have any children, Carberry said, but she was blessed with scores of friends and family members who will be attending the Celebration of Life scheduled for this Sunday at noon at 48 Jenness Ave. in Rye.

Carberry said Jenn requested the Celebration of Life before she passed away at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover.

“It was definitely a sad four weeks and now she is at peace,” said Carberry about the final month of Jenn’s life.

When asked what she would like people to know about Marcelais, Carberry replied,  “She was just a really cool person. She had a lot of groovy energy and she was very dedicated to the things she was doing.”

Carberry said the city’s digital media community will also miss seeing Jenn regularly check in on Foursquare.

Above all, Carberry said her friend loved Portsmouth and her dream was to see Portsmouth residents and businesses use digital media and social media to their fullest potential so they could promote the city and themselves.

Her devotion and commitment to using this technology encouraged many others to get involved in the city’s digital media scene, which has been described by some of its practitioners as a mecca.

Carberry said that if Marcelais knew this is how she is being remembered by her friends in the city she called home, “Jenn would be smiling as she looks down on us.”